Break It Down!: James Earl Carter, Jr.: Centenarian

Wednesday, October 2, 2024

James Earl Carter, Jr.: Centenarian

It's time to Break It Down!

Jimmy Carter, the 39^th president of the United States, set a record yesterday, October 1, when he observed his birthday, and became the first American president to reach triple digits.

It’s a milestone more and more Americans will reach in the years to come – and frankly, it’s something for which our national social safety net is unprepared.

Carter left office in 1981 after Ronald Reagan defeated him in his reelection bid. He was 56, at the time, too young for Social Security and Medicare.

A very long, incredible retirement

Carter opted not to follow the traditional post presidential path of dedicating himself to sitting on corporate boards and raking in speaking fees.

Instead, Carter got his hands dirty building houses, took on peace missions to Cuba and the Middle East, negotiated the release of hostages, lived in his hometown, taught Sunday school and college classes, wrote books, and won Grammys.

His has been, indisputably, the longest, most righteous and most productive post-presidency in history, although John Quincy Adams’ post-presidential, anti-slavery efforts in Congress get honorable mention.

In the nearly 44 years since leaving office, Carter helped essentially eradicate Guinea worm, a parasite that infected around 3.5 million people in the mid-’80s and just 14 in 2023, according to The Carter Center.

It’s been 22 years since he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, just as the US was preparing for war in Iraq. Carter also paid a landmark visit to Cuba that year.

It’s been nine years since Carter announced at a news conference that he had been diagnosed with brain cancer and might not have long to live.

CNN’s Stephen Collinson wrote at the time:

“I have had a wonderful life,” Carter said with the same unsparing honesty and meticulous detail that marked his presidency. “I’m ready for anything and I’m looking forward to new adventure,” Carter said, in the 40-minute appearance before the cameras, in which he frequently beamed his huge smile and never fell prey to emotion. “It is in the hands of God, whom I worship.”

Carter had more to do

By December 2015, Carter announced that after treatment, the cancer was gone. A timeline of his life maintained by CNN’s research library has many more notable entries.

It’s been nine years since Carter published an autobiography, “A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety.” He won a Grammy Award – his second – for the audiobook. He would win a third a few years later.

It’s been seven years since he was hospitalized for dehydration in Winnipeg, Canada, where he was outdoors – still working! – for Habitat for Humanity, the organization with which he had a long association.

It’s been five years since he won that third Grammy in 2019, broke his hip and joked that there should be an age limit on the presidency since he couldn’t have done the job at 80. He also turned 95 that year, and became the longest-living American president, surpassing George H.W. Bush.

It’s been nearly two years since Carter entered hospice care and almost a year since his wife, Rosalynn, died. They were married in 1946.

More people will turn 100

As remarkable as Carter made his years since American voters retired him from the White House, there’s also something increasingly normal about people living to 100.

Former presidents, all well-to-do and protected by a generous pension, aren’t a representative sample of society, but it’s notable that the four oldest former presidents – Carter, Bush, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan – all lived in the 21st century.

Overall, US life expectancy dropped during the Covid-19 pandemic. It has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels, and it lags behind other developed countries, according to an analysis by KFF. As of 2022, the life expectancy for US males was 74.8 and for US females was 80.2.

But the population of 100-year-olds is expected to quadruple in the coming decades, according to Pew Research Center. It estimated in January that the current number of centenarians was around 101,000 and that the figure would increase to about 422,000 within 30 years, a small but growing portion of the US population as the average age increases and the birth rate declines. Today, celebrate “James Earl Carter, Jr.: Centenarian!”

I’m done; holla back!

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